By National Wind Watch The Lancaster County Board of Commissioners voted 3-1 to this week to allow for the electricity-generating wind turbines in rural parts of the county to be noisier and installed closer to residents. During the meeting Thursday, several commissioners cited the consequences of climate change and changing industries as justification for amending…
By National Wind Watch I received notification the other day of a neighbour’s plans to convert an outbuilding on his property into habitable accommodation. Should I wish to object I have 28 days to do so but, says the notice, if my challenge falls on deaf ears, I have no right of appeal. Happily, I’m…
By National Wind Watch CATO TOWNSHIP – The Cato Township Planning Commission hosted its first-ever Zoom meeting Wednesday evening, and despite the focus being the contentious topic of wind turbines, Chairman Phil Morrow and his colleagues helped set a tone of civility which carried throughout the meeting. “We want to communicate with each other tonight…
By National Wind Watch It’s been amusing to see the defenders of wind power loudly jump to the defence of their preferred technology. They argue that natural gas generators also went offline and took 30,000 MW off the grid (compared to 16,000 MW offline from wind). That rather misses the point. If Texas had spent…
By National Wind Watch Villagers in Roberton are up in arms over plans for another massive wind farm in South Lanarkshire. Banks Renewables have applied to South Lanarkshire Council with a scoping opinion request as it seeks to create Bodinglee Wind Farm near Biggar by erecting 62 turbines with tip heights of 200-250 metres. If…
By National Wind Watch Bitter cold and icy conditions in Texas showed that wind farms are built for yesterday’s climate and often not winterized to withstand changing weather due to climate change. Wind farm operators install de-icing systems only if they make economic sense for the climate they’re in—not necessarily to avoid icing in a…
By National Wind Watch The Indiana House has approved a plan to replace various county wind and solar power regulations with statewide standards – providing regulatory certainty to landowners, power generators, and utilities. House Bill 1381, sponsored by state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, was approved 58-38 Wednesday and now goes to the Senate. It sets…
By National Wind Watch Around 40 people attended a public hearing for the first of two possible wind energy ordinances in Washington County. The Board of Supervisors held the hearing Wednesday evening at the Conservation Education Center at Marr Park to allow any county residents to ask questions and give comments on the ordinance, which…
By National Wind Watch As a world leader in renewable energy and a major exporter of low-carbon electricity, Sweden is among the green elite. Yet a cold snap provoked a political storm this winter when, in order to keep the lights on, the authorities started up a 52-year-old oil-fired power plant. A furious debate centered…
By National Wind Watch After reading the the article about the power shortage in Texas, you’d think the people in charge would rethink the alternative energy plan. Anyone with knowledge of energy production such as coal-fired power plants, natural gas pipelines, compressor stations, nuclear power plants and the like produce massive amounts of heat when…
By Gerard Reid The best perfoming energy stocks over the past five years were all renewables-focused. Companies like Enel, Iberdrola, NextEra and Orsted have significantly outperformed the Big Oil companies.What’s interesting though is that the worst performing oil and gas companies were also those most aggressive about decarbonisation, namely Total, Shell, BP, Eni and Repsol….
By Kelsey Misbrener Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 617, the Solar Access Act. SB 617 implements automated solar permitting in local jurisdictions with over 10,000 residents. This will allow for remote inspections and approvals of residential solar and solar + storage systems, which will greatly decrease approval times, cut permitting costs for local…
By [email protected] (Bengt Halvorson) Incentives are making both the 2021 Chevrolet Bolt EV and 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E the same or less as the 2022 Bolt EV and EUV, respectively. GM has a fix for 2017-2019 Bolt EV models and their hobbled charging. Mercedes is saying no to an all-electric timeline. And Hyundai is getting…
By [email protected] If we’re going to accelerate the global clean energy transition, we need to get smarter about how we deploy scarce climate finance overseas. Nowhere is a smarter approach needed than in one of the last frontiers for coal expansion: Southeast Asia. Public dollars, stranded assets One key reason why many Southeast Asian countries…
By [email protected] (Bengt Halvorson) GM on Thursday posted an update about its recall—made over fire concerns—that makes most 2017-2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV models only able to charge up to 90%. The update suggests that GM might not need to replace or modify battery packs in affected vehicles, and a solution might rely on a software…